Why Write?

The first thing I ever recall writing a was Mario Kart fan fiction.

It was awful, I was eight, but damn it, Mario was determined to make Peach love him and Luigi and Yoshi were going to help.

I think I've always loved reading and writing. I was reading on my own when I was four and my favorite book as a child was "Horton Hears A Who".

Even with my undeniable love for reading and writing, as a kid I wanted to be an archeologist. No sooner did I discover my love for old things did I start reading and writing about them as well.

Then in sixth grade, my teacher loved to make us write. We wrote haiku's, poems that looked musical instruments, I wrote two plays [one was a hilarious adaptation of "The Wizard of Oz" and the other was about three girls who discovered they were royalty], and three short stories [one about a girl involved in a murder, one about a rabbit/archeologist who went to the land down under, and the third about a little known Greek goddess who wasn't appreciate for her talent of growing flowers].

My teacher, for whatever reason it seemed to me at the time, marveled at my stories and was always showing them off to other teachers. One day she came back to me and told me that I had a gift.

I was really proud of myself. At the time I was just happy to have a higher IQ than the rest of my classmates, but me talented?

It wasn't until that moment that I looked at all the things I had written, the fact that my room was cluttered with everything from Anne Frank to Harry Potter and the fact that I had to write that I realized that I wanted to be a writer. That I was good at it, that I loved it and that it was my destiny.

Sixth graders don't usually have epiphanies but I did.

Why do I still write to this very day? Because I have to. I don't talk much. I can't explain myself through interpretive dance. When I do talk it's so low that I have to feel like I'm screaming for people to hear me.

Writing is my only option. I write because it feels good. I write because Horton, Harry Potter, and Anne Frank were my best friends as a kid [and still to this day] and I feel like I'd be doing them a disservice if I didn't use this talent - this passion and put it to good use.

So - that's why I write.

Because I have no other options.